Here’s why Biden’s misleading shrinkflation spin is wrong

Mar 6, 2024 by AFP

President Joe Biden tries repeatedly to convince Americans his failed Bidenomics policy agenda is working. Despite his best efforts, no one is buying his spin.

Poll after poll shows most Americans disapprove of how Biden handles the economy. It’s no surprise: groceries are up more than 20% since Biden took office, and a typical four-person American family spends $11,400 more per year than before January 2021 to maintain their standard of living.

With their economic messaging efforts in tatters and the election looming, the administration is now testing a new talking point in a desperate bid to improve its low poll numbers: “shrinkflation,” a term Biden is using to describe when businesses sell smaller products for the same price.

Instead of singing praises for his successful economic program, Biden is now changing tune (again). In a Super Bowl-themed ad, he blames food companies for selling smaller ice cream containers or packing fewer chips in a bag while charging the same price.

Biden’s deception has a grain of truth: getting charged the same for less is not good.

However, he’s forgetting to tell you one key detail. “Shrinkflation” is not a shady Wall Street corporate conspiracy but a regrettable consequence of Biden’s own irresponsible economic policies.

In reality, “shrinkflation” is a classic political ploy, an attempt to scapegoat businesses and deflect blame from Biden’s destructive policies that caused inflation in the first place.

Biden’s reckless policies created inflation

Since coming into office in 2021, Biden has overseen an astonishing increase in government spending and debt. In just three years, he signed bills and executive orders authorizing $5.5 trillion (about $17,000 per person in the U.S.) in new government spending on top of what was already expected, ballooning our debt to more than $34 trillion (or about $100,000 per person in the U.S.).

Unsurprisingly, borrowing to spend trillions of dollars is not cost-free. By increasing deficit spending to unsustainable levels, the federal government flooded the economy with trillions of freshly minted dollars, and prices inevitably rose to levels not seen since the 1970s.

The harsh economic reality is for all to see. The price of every single household item you can think of has skyrocketed over the last three years.

Eggs? Up 71%. Chicken breast? Up 25%. American cheese? Up 18%. Potato chips? Up almost 30%.

Groceries are not the only area where prices have risen. Biden’s war on the American energy sector has caused a significant increase in the cost of gas and other inputs, making it even more costly for companies to produce the goods and services we consume every day.

‘Shrinkflation’ is just inflation

Companies must find a way to mitigate these costs, and most of them have been forced to increase their prices to make enough money to pay their employees, stay afloat, and make a profit that allows them to reinvest in their business’s future growth.

Some businesses simply changed their price tag, others kept charging the same as before but reduced their product sizes. Some did both.

Neither of these business tactics are part of a nefarious plan to exploit consumers; they are just the consequences of failed and irresponsible policies the Biden administration has pursued over the last three years.

“Shrinkflation” is the economic equivalent of turning the thermostat down in the winter because the utility bill is too high. You are not trying to make everyone in your house miserably cold; you are just doing the best you can to cope with a tough situation.

While the Biden White House might sell it as a new thing, “shrinkflation” is not different at all from regular inflation. In both cases, Americans are paying more and more money to get the same as they did before, and in both cases, the federal government’s reckless spending and borrowing is to blame, brought to us by Biden and a big-spending Congress

So, whenever you get upset for paying the same for a smaller Snickers bar, remember Biden and his congressional allies are to blame. And now they’re trying to dodge responsibility.